Ken Hall: In gun discussion, let's clarify what we're talking about

If we are going to have a national conversation on guns and violence as so many have suggested, we need to clarify what we are talking about before we can agree on what we should or can do about it.

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Posted Jan. 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Posted Jan. 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM

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If we are going to have a national conversation on guns and violence as so many have suggested, we need to clarify what we are talking about before we can agree on what we should or can do about it.

The people at Slate, the online magazine, along with the Twitter feed "@gundeaths" have started keeping track of shooting fatalities through a straightforward compilation of news reports. Each story goes on the Twitter feed, and Slate combines them into a graphic list with a running total, a map and Web link.

By the end of the year, the count was up to 397 gun deaths since the Newtown, Conn., shootings. They include domestic disputes, accidents, drive-by victims who might or might not have been the intended targets and lots of brief stories with anonymous killers and casualties. They do not resemble the mass killings in Connecticut or Colorado, mostly coming in ones, twos and occasionally threes.

The listings have attracted lots of comments, some seeing them as proof that we have to do something to reduce the number of guns in private hands, some seeing them as even stronger proof that people who have guns need to be diligent about keeping them secure.

There are good questions about whether this proves anything, since there are so many automobile-related deaths and nobody seems to be calling for a ban on car ownership. That might lead to a productive discussion about the government role in vehicle safety and whether it would make sense to require licensing, testing, training, registration and insurance for weapons or if any of that might help.

A few things do emerge clearly from the list. There is not much to indicate that mental illness, which is so prevalent in speculation about mass killings, plays any part in these cases. The question about whether it is better to be armed for self-protection could get complicated in discussing these because so many of the deaths come from weapons that were in the house where they were used.

There is no doubt that the total on the Twitter feed and Slate underestimates the number of gun deaths. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention noted that there were 38,364 reported suicide deaths in 2010 in the United States and about 50 percent of them came from firearms. Not all suicides are reported as such and most news organizations do not print or broadcast stories about them, so many are not among the deaths in the Slate figures.

Death does not take a holiday in the listings. Twenty-two men, one woman and two children were listed as casualties on Christmas Day. Both children were the victims of accidental shootings.

In Memphis, Tenn., according to the story on WMCTV, 10-year-old Alfreddie Gipson died when someone in his house accidentally fired a shot. In Conway, S.C., according to the story by WPDE, 2-year-old Sincere Tymere Smith died when he picked up a handgun and it went off.